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My parents, the nun and the monk

The extraordinary tale of a most improbable family

May 23 2012, 1:01am, The Times

To say that my parents’ life is my finest dinner party anecdote sounds somewhat callous. Still, I am ashamed to admit, it probably is. Because before they met, my mother was a nun, and my father was a monk. And not for a short time, either. My mother, Anne, was a Servite nun for almost 13 years and my father, Jeremy, a Benedictine monk for almost 14.

Ordinarily I would tell this story only to friends. But this month I have had to think a little more about it. Because this month, the British Library launched a scheme called The Listening Project, in which it invites “listeners to help us catch ... those rare exchanges that really matter”. To catch them, the BBC invited listeners to…